Teaching Maths - Time

Teaching about time

Time includes reading clocks, as well as learning about the days of the week, and other aspects of the calendar.
I've created a summary page on Maths Time Facts to answer all those funny questions like "Why are there 12 months in a year?"

Timers and Clocks on the web

This is a list of timers and clock resources on the web, not necessarily games. Of course you might want to use these for timing things in your classroom, not just for teaching maths!

• Egg Timer - a cute graphical egg timer, and Countdown Timer, a cooking style timer from the same site
• Doorway About Time - some useful clock and time related resources from the UK
• Analogue Clock Teaching Resources - a great clearly drawn clock that you can adjust on the IWB - tells the current time but can then be adjusted.
• PoissonRouge Clock - another adjustable analogue clock that also shows the corresponding digital time underneath.
• Timer Stopwatch - one of a number of excellent, clear and configurable timers available at timeme.com

Time Related Web Sites and Games

• Telling Time to the Hour - the graphics on this are not especially engaging but it does stick to o'clock times. Includes sounds.
• BBC Snapdragon - set the time on an alarm clock to a time given in words, at which point the alarm will go off. Also includes the time in Welsh! Dragon speaks both English and Welsh versions of the time. All times are o'clock times.
• BBC Bitesize KS1 Time game- good quality graphics and games are available for all levels.
  • Medium level is all o'clock times, and includes "what will the time be in four hours?" questions
  • Hard level uses half-past times
  • Really hard includes quarter to and quarter past, with some complex duration questions like "What will the time be in 7 hours and 45 minutes?"
  • See also KS2 Bitesize(missions to match analogue and digital time, and other time information) and KS3 Bitesize.
• Stop the Clock - Time matching: Drag the times shown to the analogue clocks that match. Seems to be all o'clock times.
• What Time is It? This game asks you to click on the digital clock that matches the analogue clock. Times are o'clock and half hour times.
• Clockworks - race against a countdown timer to set an analogue clock to match supplied digital times. 15 minute times are included, as well as half hour and on the hour.
• NumberNut activities including matching the digital clock to the provided analogue clock, how much time has passed (30 min amounts), picking the clock that shows a given time (15 mins)
• Bang on Time game - stop the clock when it matches the given time (ten turns in each game). Speed of clock hands is adjustable. Times include all multiples of five, e.g. "twenty five minutes to six". Times are given in words. There is another copy of the same game at http://www.teachingtime.co.uk/clock2/clockwordsres.html
• Stop the Clock games: 1/2 hour, 15 minutes, 5 minute, and minute games: stop the clock 4 and stop the clock 5.
• Teaching Time - a UK web site with a small number of resources and games including matching digital to analogue times, suitable for Years 1 to 5.
• Time for Time - includes three games including setting a clock to half hour time (only runs once before needing to be reloaded), printable time telling game that includes all multiples of five on the clocks, and a code breaking game based on a clock with letters inscribed on the minute markers. These last two in particular seem to only be suitable for upper primary.
• Adjustable Analogue Clock - this resource could be used for all ages - it is just a clock that you can adjust to show any time. Slightly not-obvious - click on the time inside the adjustment window to change the steps by which you can change the time, using the plus and minus buttons.
• There are numerous versions of a Java time setting game for an analogue clock around, e.g. http://www.lil-fingers.com/games/time/ but I can't recommend it as it includes spelling errors, and the hands of the clock don't work well, e.g. when asked to set to 7:30, the hour hand stays pointing directly at the 7.

Months of the Year

NumberNut: Tricky quiz about months of the year, e.g. which month is six months after November?

Special Time Topics

• Teaching about Leap Years - once every four years (generally speaking) you will have a Feb 29th to teach about leap years, assuming it isn't on a weekend!

Time related activities and lesson ideas

Here is a set of lesson ideas/activities that you can use for practicing or learning about time in Year 1. The key Australian goals are:

• Tell time to the half-hour (ACMMG020) and
• Describe duration using months, weeks, days and hours(ACMMG021) for instance, "How long is it until we next come to school?"

• If you have a class set of mini-cardboard clocks, each person can hold up an answer to a question like "Show 3 o'clock".
• Teacher supplies times and students draw the hands of the clock to show that time.
• Match written o'clock times to clock faces and digital clocks (worksheet)
• Match written "half past" and "half to" times on analogue and digital clocks (worksheet)
• Review a school timetable to see how long some events take, e.g. recess, or maths lessons

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